LONDON (AP) — A father and daughter crippled by a suicide bomber who killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert in England in 2017 were awarded 45,000 pounds ($58,000) Friday in a case against a former television producer who claimed the tragedy was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert and his daughter, Eve, won their harassment suit in the High Court in London last month against Richard Hall for videos, a film and a book he produced that falsely claim the Manchester Arena bombing was staged using actors and no one was wounded or killed.
Hall, an independent producer, had claimed “millions of people have bought a lie” about the attack and defended his work, including surreptitiously filming the daughter, as journalism in the public's interest.
Justice Karen Steyn called Hall’s conduct a “negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom." She said he used the “flimsiest of analytical techniques” to dismiss "the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested.”
Salman Abedi blew himself up with a bomb hidden in a knapsack as fans were leaving the Grande concert on May 22, 2017. In addition to those killed, more than 260 people were wounded and hundreds of others were left with “deep psychological injuries,” police said.
Martin Hibbert was paralyzed from the waist down and his daughter, who was 14 at the time, nearly died and has severe brain damage.
The Hibbert's also won an injunction preventing Hall from further harassment, and Hall will have to pay 90% of their legal costs that are currently estimated at 260,000 pounds ($335,000).
The award, however, is meager compared to many won in U.S. lawsuits. In a case that also involved denying a major tragedy, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 for falsely claiming it was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert said that he never expects to see a penny of the award, but the victory wasn't about money.
“What this was about was bringing him down in public, in front of his own followers, that’s what I’ve done," he said outside court.
Hall said the trial was unfair and continued to insist the bombing didn't happen as he left the court.
FILE - Martin Hibbert makes a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, July 25, 2024. (James Manning/PA via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week's election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a web of criminal associates who participate in Tehran's assassination plots.
Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
The official was quoting by Shakeri as saying that “We have already spent a lot of money" and that “money’s not an issue.” Shakeri told investigators the official told him that if he could not put together a plan within the seven-day timeframe, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then, the complaint said.
Shakeri is at large and remains in Iran. Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including of a prominent Iranian American journalist who has been targeted in murder-for-hire plots, were arrested Friday.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump's defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot targeting American officials.
Iranian operatives also conducted a hack-and-leak operation of emails belonging to Trump campaign associates in what officials have assessed was an effort to interfere in the presidential election.
Intelligence officials have said Iran opposed Trump’s reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trump’s administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and nothing will deter him “from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world.”
Neumeister reported from New York.
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump is reflected in the bullet proof glass as he finishes speaking at a campaign rally in Lititz, Pa., Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches a video screen at a campaign rally at the Salem Civic Center, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Salem, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
